How to Harvest and Filter Rainwater

Posted on: May 1, 2009
8 comments so far (is that a lot?)

By Matt @ GreenovationTV

rainwater-collection

Imagine if fresh water for your home fell magically from the sky to nourish your family – or your fish.  Sounds crazy?  Well, believe it or not, fresh water falls from the sky every time it rains!

All seriousness aside . . . here’s some facts:

1,000 square feet of roof can capture 600 gallons of water with only 1″ of rainfall.

Only 5% of household water use is for drinking.

Pam & Stan, from the fantastic blog Urban Survivalists, have a great solution.  They are completing a rainwater harvesting system that filters water so completely that you can drink it without fear of contamination. This will help their city, Portland, Oregon, be more sustainable.  (Check out how they did it.)

Like most cities, Portland rain-collective-diagramstill has combined sewer systems.

In this outdated system, 100% the water that comes into our homes is fresh, potable water.  100% the water that goes out is polluted.  In essence, we are peeing and pooping in our drinking water.  We take a few ounces of pee and turn it into several gallons of waste.

All of this wasted water is drained into sewer pipes which is combined with storm-water and sent to a wasted-water treatment plant (“wastewater” is a misnomer).

Then, the expensive, wasteful and polluting process is repeated.  Often, some of the untreated sewage and runoff from a rain event gets dumped directly into a river, stream or ocean.

Schematic for rainwater filtration system

Click here for detailed plans to make your own rainwater capture filtration system

Creating a rain harvesting system reduces run off and helps make our rivers and beaches safer while still meeting modern human needs.

My small town of Ann Arbor, Michigan is about to spend $140 million dollars on a new wasted-water treatment plant.  Maybe we could reduce the size of this plant, or eliminate it altogether, by transitioning to smarter systems that work together with our natural environment.

Check out Urban Survivalist‘s detailed, step-by-step instructions to make your own rainwater capture and filtration system.

Click here for more information on how drinking water is treated

Click here for a video of a dancing cat

8 Responses to “How to Harvest and Filter Rainwater”

  1. GreenovationTV » Blog Archive » Could Capturing Rainwater in a Barrel Be Illegal? Says:
    September 18th, 2009 at 4:01 pm

    [...] How to harvest and filter rainwater [...]

  2. Pam & Stan Says:
    September 19th, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    Thanks for the article about rainwater collection and water treatment. We really hope more people will start getting involved and we appreciate you featuring our work.

    Thanks!

  3. robert england Says:
    October 18th, 2009 at 5:06 pm

    We’re not greenies, but we are survivalists. We see economic and other disaster looming and are shoring up for the pending….

    Your article is informative and very welcome. Thanks.

    We’d sign our names but the thought police may come.

    Bob and Charlie

  4. robert england Says:
    October 18th, 2009 at 5:10 pm

    I submitted one comment but it was evidently not received. Either you or I have a communication problem.

    Thanks for your article. We’ll be using it in our endeavors.

    Bob and Charlie

  5. Ready Radio | PDX.FM Says:
    December 10th, 2009 at 6:24 pm

    [...] Calculate your family’s water needs How to store water properly POEM survey Boxed Water: Aqua2Go and Aqua Blox The Element Four WaterMill DIY Rainwater Filter Project [...]

  6. Ready Radio: Episode 11 – Water Wisdom – Ready Radio Says:
    January 7th, 2010 at 1:24 pm

    [...] Calculate your family’s water needs How to store water properly POEM survey Boxed Water: Aqua2Go and Aqua Blox The Element Four WaterMill DIY Rainwater Filter Project [...]

  7. rainwater filters Says:
    February 8th, 2011 at 7:54 am

    Nice methods as collecting the water from roof as collected in the tanks and also make it clean by using filters but isn’t it seems it is very lengthy process.

  8. rainwater filters Says:
    February 19th, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    Thanks for the article about rainwater collection and water treatment. I really hope more people will start getting involved in this function.

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